Yet one of Heinsohns most lasting legacies came from his years as the second president of the N.B.A. players union. Before the 1964 All-Star Game, Heinsohn organized a strike to demand better working conditions. The owners agreed, leading to the N.B.A.s first collective-bargaining agreement and, eventually, free agency.
Although he was a ferocious competitor, those who knew Heinsohn described him as kind and serene when the game clock expired, and generous with his time as a mentor and a friend. Heinsohn was also an accomplished painter, partial to watercolors and New England landscapes. We have a Heinsohn in our living room, Ryan said. Its called Snowy Winter Evening.
As basketball evolved, Heinsohn did not. When 3-pointers became the rage, he still loved the midrange jumper. When advanced statistics became sportscasters parlance, he ignored them. You know what metric I know? he once asked Gorman during a game. The final score. Instead, he invented his own stat to measure the immeasurable; he awarded thousands of Tommy Points for hustle plays.
Tony Allen, the scrappy Celtics defensive specialist, admitted this week that he would rewatch games to count his Tommy Points. Any Celtic that ever played in a Celtic uniform always was thankful for a Tommy Point, he said.
Heinsohn believed his eyes over stats, Gorman said. Before their first N.B.A. game together in 1981, Gorman said, he was laying out detailed notes with statistics and player anecdotes when Heinsohn arrived and asked what they were.read more
Tommy Heinsohn: The Loud, Biased, Lovable Celtic
